The Third Sunday of Easter – Year A
Lectionary readings
Acts 2 v14a, 36-41. Peter speaks to the crowd.
1 Peter 1 v17-23. Living as God’s holy people.
Luke 24 v13-35. The road to Emmaus.
Comment: Beware of strangers no more.
In Luke’s account, two disciples on the way to the village of Emmaus, are joined by a ‘stranger’ who they later discover is the risen Christ.
Is Luke challenging us to recognise the risen Christ in strangers that we encounter?
In the reading from Acts, Peter is addressing a crowd made up of people from different places, strangers to one another. (Acts 2 v7-11)
Peter is keen to proclaim
- that God has overturned the judgement of the world’s rulers (Herod, Pilate and the Temple leaders) and vindicated Jesus by raising him from death.
- ‘that they should know for certain that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ’ (v36a),
- that they were complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus (by being part of the crowd that freed Barabbas?) ‘even though you put him on the cross’ (v36b).
Peter then invites them to repent of their sins and be baptised into the family of God. Strangers become brothers and sisters in Christ.
In the letter of Peter, he is addressing a community of Christians who are suffering at the hands of others for following the way of Jesus. Peter encourages them to remember that even though they may have been strangers to one another before, they are now part of God’s family. (v17)
Peter’s ministry was to take the ‘good news’ (That Jesus is both Lord and Christ) to the wider world. Peter emphasised that God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, now indwelling the family of God, enables them as God’s ‘holy people’ to see strangers as fellow human beings, part of God’s beloved creation, no more or less worthy than themselves, of God’s saving grace.
We are called to do the same. To celebrate Easter, accept God’s forgiveness, and his gift of the Holy Spirit; then to pass on the ‘blessing’. We have been blessed to be a blessing to others.
Thanks to Mike Peck for submitting these reflections